Wittgenstein’s work, early and later, contains the seeds of an original and important rethinking of moral or ethical thought that has, so far, yet to be fully appreciated. The ten essays in this collection, all specially commissioned for this volume, are united in the claim that Wittgenstein’s thought has much to contribute to our understanding of this fundamental area of philosophy and of our lives. They take up a variety of different perspectives on this aspect of Wittgenstein’s work, and explore the significance of Wittgenstein’s moral thought throughout his work, from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and Wittgenstein’s startling claim there that there can be no ethical propositions, to the Philosophical Investigations.

Exploring the ethical dimension of Wittgenstein's thought, Iczkovits challenges the view that Wittgenstein had a vision of language and subsequently a vision of ethics, showing how the two are integrated in his philosophical method, and allowing us to reframe traditional problems in moral philosophy considered as external to questions of meaning.

Essays by leading scholars that take as their point of departure Cora Diamond's work on the unity of Wittgenstein's thought and her writings on moral philosophy.

Argues that Wittgenstein, though himself often silent on particular ethical matters, gives us immense resources for understanding the aims appropriate to any philosophical ethics. This work re-examines some of the landmarks in the history of moral philosophy in order to cast contemporary ethical philosophy in a fresh light.

The most complete edition yet published of Wittgenstein’s 1929 lecture includes a never-before published first draft and makes fresh claims for its significance in Wittgenstein’s oeuvre. The first available print publication of all known drafts of Wittgenstein’s Lecture on Ethics Includes a previously unrecognized first draft of the lecture and new transcriptions of all drafts Transcriptions preserve the philosopher’s emendations thus showing the development of the ideas in the lecture Proposes a different draft as the version read by Wittgenstein in his 1929 lecture Includes introductory essays on the origins of the material and on its meaning, content, and importance

The essays collected in this volume explore some of the themes that have been at the centre of recent debates within Wittgensteinian scholarship. In opposition to what we are tentatively inclined to think, the articles of this volume invite us to understand that our need to grasp the essence of ethical and religious thought and language will not be achieved by metaphysical theories expounded from such a point of view, but by focusing on our everyday forms of expression.

At first sight, Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein may well seem to be as different from each other as it is possible for the ideas of two major intellectuals to be. Despite this standard conception, however, a small number of scholars have long suggested that there are deeper philosophical commonalities between Marx and Wittgenstein. They have argued that, once grasped, these commonalities can radically change and enrich understanding both of Marxism and of Wittgensteinian philosophy. This book develops and extends this unorthodox view, emphasising the mutual enrichment that comes from bringing Marx's and Wittgenstein's ideas into dialogue with one another. Essential reading for all scholars and philosophers interested in the Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of Wittgenstein, this book will also be of vital interest to those studying and researching in the fields of social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of social science and political economy.